ASE 2023 Annual Conference at Sheffield Hallam University

There is national and international concern about the low numbers of young people leaving school with little or no computing skills. In England, computing curriculum changes since 2014 have resulted in a decline in the numbers of girls choosing any computing qualification at GCSE and A-level, to levels well below the numbers choosing the other sciences. In this interactive workshop, we will present findings from the SCARI Computing research project based at King’s College London, reflect on current practice and discuss solutions that support young people to make freer subject choices.

The SCARI computing project aims to explore the factors that explain the performance and participation of girls in secondary school level computing with a particular focus on computer science exams. The study will use the National Pupil Dataset and School Workforce Census, complemented with qualitative data collected from school managers, students and school documentation. The project is funded by the Nuffield Foundation.